The Night The Towers Sang
by Mrs.AddieMontgomeryShepherd
Summary: He lost her the day he married her, because a lot more happened on 22nd April 2011 than anyone remembers.


Disclaimer: I own nothing, everything belongs to the BBC and Steven Moffat.

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**The Night The Towers Sang**

"You really are a cow.", Clara muttered, while trying to find her way back to the console room. Once again, the TARDIS had thought it funny to turn the sprinkler in her room on, waking her and making her all wet in the process. "You could at least stop moving corridors around so I'd find my to the main console – which is where you want me, don't you?"  
The TARDIS gave a hum that sounded almost contrite and to her left a door slid open, revealing the console room.  
"See, that wasn't hard now, was it?"  
As she stepped into the room, she immediately saw what had concerned the ship so much she decided it needed Clara's attention.

The Doctor stood in the open door, shoulders hunched, waves of sadness rolling of off him.

His whole body was trembling.

"Doctor...?", Clara asked tentatively.

Immediately, he stood taller. But he didn't spin around, as he usually would. Instead, he turned slowly.

"Clara. I thought you were asleep."

She saw that he had cried and if the Doctor cried...

"I was.", the impossible girl said, "But your ship thought you'd need me."

"No, no, I'm fine."

"Certainly doesn't look like it. Something out there made you cry. So, what is it? And don't you dare lie to me, I've spent enough lives saving you to know all your tricks."

He hung his head. "It's the 22nd April 2011."

Clara knew for a fact that she had already lived that day, only she hadn't spent it with the Doctor...until she had, as a cleric in a pyramid in a time that never was and always were because of a love so strong it destroyed reality.

"The day of your wedding.", she breathed.

Outside, a tune was picked up. It was just a simple one, first too faint to be heard by humans. Another joined in and another and another – until it was the beginning of a melody, haunting but so very,very beautiful, which reached Clara's ears in the TARDIS. She gasped.

"What's that?"  
"Singing Towers of Darillium.", he answered and, lacking his usual enthusiasm, explained:

"Legend has it that aeons and aeons ago, five creatures made of living stone settled upon Darillium. They had fled all of the known civilisations because people hunted them out of fear they'd destroy their planets walking over them – which is total rubbish, but that's history books for you. People hunted them in hopes to be able to hear their beautiful singing all day.

Those creatures, you see, were highly empathic. They'd react to all feelings around them, reflecting them as melodies. Sometimes, they'd even reflect the soul of a being. For them it was a curse, being suffocated with all those emotions, making them lash out. Took me days to coax them into the TARDIS to bring them here. Back then, Darillium was wasteland – the perfect place. Thing about living stone – it doesn't die, just becomes stonier until one day, it can't move any more.

The creatures became stone towers and over the years, they lost their empathic abilities. Not really, though. Some people from Darillium say that something powerful enough will come and warm those creatures hearts, making them sing once more.

And that happens to be tonight. Imagine, out there are hundreds and hundreds of beings, each hearing their own song.", he peered at her, curious, "What does yours sound like?"

Clara listened for a moment, really listened. "I... it's hard to describe. Very fairytale. A bit like the musical clock I had as a child. It used to play a waltz, I think. But it didn't have this underlying darkness. What do you hear?"

The Doctor didn't answer. Instead, a voice behind her said: "Me. Well, a melody that resembles me anyway. Or so he said."

Clara tensed up. She knew that voice. And in a way, it's owner.

"Stop doing that.", she murmured quietly.

River Song moved in front of her, blocking Clara's view of the Doctor.

"You can hear me, then? I'm not really here."

Clara nodded.

"You though...you seem to be woven into his timestream. I've met you a long time ago. Oswin, right?"

"No, Clara. I met you when that lizard-woman..."

River shushed her. "You can't tell me. Spoilers."

Walking over to the Doctor, who seemed obvious to her presence, she took a look outside, muttering affectionately: "You nostalgic idiot. You know she doesn't like you crossing your own timeline."

"So it's not the first time-"

"No.", the Doctor said, just as River answered: "He's been here many times. And so have I. Every 22nd April."

"But why revisit a place when it hurts so much to simply be there?"

"Because this is where she was happiest.", the Timelord simply said, striding up to the console and turning the monitor on.

What they saw was a couple, dancing barefoot in the soft grass.

"So now we're spying on yourself and your wife on your anniversary."

"No!", the Doctor exclaimed.

"Basically, yes.", River said.

Clara turned to the Doctor.

"I don't understand. It looks like a happy memory and yet you look like you've just lost the most important thing in the world."

"It's what happens at the end of this night.", he said, his fingers coming up to trace her outline on the monitor.

"Tomorrow morning, she'll go to the Library. Never could resist old,dusty, mysterious things. Archaeologist, all I'm saying."

"But you love it.", River smirked.

"She always wanted to come here; hear the towers sing."

"He promised to take me for ages, and then the night marking our anniversary, he turned up on my doorstep with a new haircut and a suit."

"I tried to avoid taking her here for so long. But I suppose, Darillium has always been fixed one way or the other."

"And even if it weren't, I wouldn't have missed it for the world.", River laughed, "Oh, the night we had. But if you think about it – who else could warm the towers' hearts but those who have lived and lost and loved more than any other creature in this universe; who can feel it's very turn and see time itself?"

Indeed, who else?, Clara thought, glancing at the monitor just in time to see River leaning up against the Doctor and undoing his bow tie.

"I'm not sure if I want to see this...", Clara muttered, while the dataghost of the very woman chuckled and said: "Don't worry, dear, we'd never..."

"What? No! Clara!", the Doctor cried, "Get your mind out of the gutter, will you?"

The impossible girl held her hands up in surrender.

"As I said earlier – we're not spying on our younger versions anniversary. Well, we are, but we're also spying on our wedding. The first on in this reality, anyway."

"The first.", Clara said, deciding it wasn't worth getting confused about.

River shrugged. "He likes a good wedding."

The Doctor on the screen took the end of the bow tie his version of River had offered him.

"22nd April 2011, the day the towers sang. There was no way I could pass up that opportunity.", the Doctor next to Clara smiled a fond but sad smile, "Besides, we never got around to getting married in this reality before. And I wanted to make it count, you see. I knew she was going to die – always have – and be uploaded into the Library's data core by my 10th self, so I wanted to give her a good memory she could dream about, until I'd come for her."

"Because you don't walk away when you hold onto something precious. You run as fast as you can and don't stop until you're out from under the shadows.", Clara whispered.

The Doctor gave a sharp not.

And in silence, the three of them watched the younger Doctor take River's hand in marriage again.

He would not let it (let her) go for a long time, because that was the perks of having a time machine. He would make this night last and run with her for years.

But eventually, tomorrow would come and it would already be dawn when River stepped onto her porch.

The first rays of sunlight would illuminate her and it was there, in the first hours of the morning with a world asleep around them, when the Doctor would cry – for her, for them, for the universe.

Soft hands would reach for him and wipe his tears away.

He would take them into his, only for a second, and then she would feel a familiar weight pressing into her palms.

His screwdriver.

She would murmur his name and for one precious moment, he would hold her close.

Then, he would be gone; he would leave her behind with the burning of a kiss on her lips, a modified sonic screwdriver clutched to her chest and a question in her eyes.

He would linger in the TARDIS' door, hoping that the unexpressed grief and devotion and overwhelming love in his eyes would be answer enough.

Tomorrow, River would stand taller and blow him a kiss, just as his ship would dematerialize.

The noise of his beautiful ship dematerializing brought him back from the bittersweet memory another him was about to make, just in time to hear his dead wife explain: "Can't have too many of him running about; could cause a paradox with his luck.

I'd rather don't do damage control on my wedding, thank you very much."

She darted around the TARDIS, throwing levers and pressing buttons – or maybe Sexy did it for her.

At any rate, they landed in Clara's backyard without a sound.

Halfway to the house, Clara looked back.

What she saw was a broken family – an ancient man leaning just a bit too much into the ghost of a woman he had loved for centuries as she kissed a single tear of his' away.

The TARDIS let out a deep hum, which almost sounded like she was weeping for the thief she stole and the child stolen from her.

Then, she firmly shut her doors.


End file.
